Hive

Finding time to write has been challenging as of late. We are both still home and have our young daughter here with us. So working full time and splitting caring for our daughter has the schedule full up. But we find time for ourselves. We picked up our copy of Hive one day while we were both hanging out with our daughter in her room and played a few rounds of it while she was trying to figure out how to crawl and playing with her stacking cups.

Hive has some real simple rules. The game is based around the queen bee tile. There are 22 Hexagonal tiles for in the box, 11 for each player. One player has black tiles and one has white, both are very beautiful tiles with different insect icons on them. The object of this game is to trap the other players queen bee by surrounding it with your tiles and/or your opponents.

Getting started.

Once you grab your 11 tiles and decide who is going first then you take turns placing your tiles adjacent to other tiles on the tabletop or in my case the floor. You may not place your tile on to the tabletop touching your opponents tile except the very first tile. Your queen bee must be placed in turns 1-4. After you have placed your queen bee then you may start moving tiles rather than placing tiles or continue placing tiles.

"I really enjoy the simplicity of this game and its elegant rules. It makes it a classic that everyone should have in their collection."

The Bugs

There are 5 insect tiles in this game; queen bee, grasshopper, beetle, solider ant, and spider. each one of these tiles may be moved around the board once your queen bee is on the tabletop. You may take one of two actions on your turn, move one of your tiles or place a new tile. I really enjoy the simplicity of this game and its elegant rules. It makes it a classic that everyone should have in their collection.

Queen Bee

She only moves one space, nothing more nothing less.

Beetle

She also only moves one space. The trick with her is she moves on top of the hive also.

Grasshopper

She jumps over any number of tiles in a straight line. She cannot skip over any gaps.

Spider

She moves exactly 3 spaces around the the hive.

Solider Ant

Solider Ant moves as many spaces around the hive as she likes.

There are a couple of other rules for the game. The first is your movement may not break the hive into two pieces. The second is if you cannot slide the tiles out of where it is without moving the other pieces.

Other than that there isn't much to the game. I highly recommend this game for every level of player. It also makes a great gift. Our daughter also loved playing with the pieces after we finished our game.

Designed by: John Yianni

Players: 2

Published by: Gen42 Games

Year Published: 2001

Recommended Ages: 9+

Time to Play: 20 minutes